Dear Blog:

I wholeheartedly apologize for my absence of near on five months. I was sidetracked while thwarting a nefarious scheme of world-domination by a dimensional hopping race of hyper evolved foot-fungi, with the help of a most unlikely companion: a talking, homicidal salamander named Dr. Skallymagtanomous. I would have been here sooner, but he insisted I accompany him on further adventures across the omni-verse, and…well, he has a laser scalpel. Sorry I’ve been away. But now I’m back!

your friend,

-Joshua

P.S. Unless, of course, the good, scalpel-wielding doctor has a penchant for wearing other people’s faces, and I never did come back.

sincerely,

-Dr. S.

P.S.S. Like a glove.

Five Months Gone & the Fjords

Hey everyone!

I’m back and in the process of building up my brand new blog (smell that new blog smell) over here at: https://joshuadoetsch.wordpress.com/ having uploaded about 8 years of bast blogage.

If you are reading this at another blog, worry not, there is a good chance that shouldn’t change and I’ll find a way to forward posts there via client, cut ’n paste, messenger pigeon, or by carving it with my laser scalpel upon the flesh of those who cross me. But…if I’m absent again from here (wherever that is), then go to the above link.

Now…the last five months could use a lot of elaboration. There have been multiple continents, projects, and alcoholic beverages made out of distilled metaphors. But there is no time! Inigo, what should we do?

“We sum up!”

Right. So last we left off, I was still in Norway, a year into my gig writing video game dialogue for Funcom. I was getting ready to hop countries, again, this time to Montreal, Canada, to write at Funcom’s new studio there. But there were things to do before leaving Scandinavia. One was to go with Oliver, a British buddy from work, and take a backpacking week through the Norwegian Fjords. This deserves its own post (and perhaps it will get one), but for now, let us say it involved rescuing a caterpillar; drinking in a meed hall; having a Nordic epic about brown cheese read to us by an Icelander and a Norwegian; a terrifying man pointing at us, in the cemetery, and shouting, “Mr. Inbetween!”; and seeing lots of scenery like this:

Norwegian fjords (2010)

An Interlude Home

Before reaching Montreal, I took a month of vacation at home, and made a mad dash to see as many of those I missed as I possibly could. I went to Island Lake, to Chicago, to Milwaukee, to Springfield, to Indianapolis, and other places besides. I also visited GenCon 2010 to get a nice injection of my gamer roots. So much to tell here…but time is short…and my new face itches!

But perhaps I could take a moment to elaborate on…

“Sum up, damn you!”

Right! Moving on.

Montreal: Real Women Wear One Painted Boxing Glove

I moved to Montreal. Much to say. But there is no time! Let me hit some random highlights. I got an apartment and I adopted a one-eyed black cat named Raven.

At a party, a girl from work mixed metaphor drinks. That is to say, there was a large and varied supply of drink accouterments, and she would not accept regular orders. Instead, you had to give her some image or idea and she would make the drink to fit it. I ordered two drinks that night. They were as follows:

DRINK #1: Flying and skidding across rooftops, like a skipping-stone, across the night city-scape sky, powered by wind and umbrella, kicking up roof tiles along the way.

DRINK #2: A dwarf sits in a graveyard, atop a mausoleum, playing sad, plastic kazoo nocturnes to the love he never had, interred within.

Both drinks tasted spot on. We drank metaphors and we were merry.

On more than one Sunday, I visited the park and the Tamtams. It’s a wonderfully gypsy collection of people organically gathering, drummers and other musicians, vendors, and an assortment of others. They play by the statue and if you wander in the woods you come across folks having medieval battles with foam weapons.

One day, while walking down the street, I came across a very long patio that ran the length of what I thought was an apartment building (but now suspect is some kind of hospital). A woman in a bathrobe marched up and down the patio, very officially. A set of giant headphones connected her to a discman. As she marched, she shook a pair of maracas to the beat of whatever she was listening to. A single boxing glove, decorated with very bright paints and designs, hung from her waist. She stopped me to ask the significance of my T-shirt (it was my I’M A NEIL GAIMAN CHARACTER shirt). I said he is an author. She nodded knowingly. “Spiritual books.” No, I said. He’s a fiction writer. At this she shook her head, realizing there were graver duties to be getting to, and she put back her giant headphones and went back to her maraca marching, the super technicolor boxing glove bouncing at her waste. I wish I’d asked her what she was listening to.

That’s all for today, lambkins. The little hand says it’s time to skedaddle.

I played video games in a graveyard, had a near hallucinatory experience with the Fraggle Rocks, saw the monolith on the big screen, and found fossils in the woods.

But enough cryptic foreplay…let’s get to it!

Goblin Markets, Fraggle Rocks, Strange Days
Several Saturdays ago, I rolled out of bed, at noon, stumbled into some clothes, and made the walk to grab a coffee at the corner shop. I found the main road closed and full of people in a sort of Norwegian sidewalk market fest. I decided to explore it for a few hours.

Sometimes getting a coffee can be an adventure.

Lots of little shops. Some cool paintings sold on the sidewalk. Various yummy smells. Various fishy smells. A large area of sidewalk was taken over by a radio station doing a promotion. They had this big ramp, covered in snow, with various kids doing ski and snowboard tricks, on the warm, sunny day. I didn’t understand what was said, but it looked fun. The boarders/skiers ranged in age, up to late teens, but the one who rocked the best tricks, and with the most confidence, was the youngest looking, a little girl. She was like the snowboarding version of Hit Girl.

That night, I went into the Funcom office (I go to work to play my video games) to play Conan with some folks from the US. With the time difference, I didn’t get out of there until 3 a.m. And what do my bleary peepers spy when I get to the street?

A bus. Not a normal bus. This bus is rocking. And there are weird lights and mist coming out of it. And loud, ribcage-rattling dance music is pulsing forth from it. In fact, it looks like there is a night club in a pocket dimension, within the bus, full of people dancing. And, as my eyes adjust, I see what it is painted along the whole outer body…scenes depicting the Fraggle Rocks.

Before I could pinch myself, the bus drove off into the Norwegian night.

And where is the magical Fraggle bus now? ‘tis a mystery…***

Womb Breach Day
The end of April saw me turn 31. This means I am just old enough to play a high school kid in Hollywood.

The Monolith and the Trilobites
So this one time, a great-uncle of mine found this bone, and smashed this other dude in the head for messing around at his waterhole…and the rest is prehistory…

Through some cats at work, I found the movie theatre that film geeks go to here in Oslo. I have since watched 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lawrence of Arabia, and Chinatown, on the big screen, in 70mm. Loud sound too. I could feel my hair flying back at the height of the 2001 theme.

All in all, I think I could have beaten HAL. Back in the early-mid 90s, I had a face-off with an artificial intelligence by the name of Dr. Sbaitso. Let’s just say…I’m the one still standing.

A few Sundays ago, I went with Oliver, another workmate from Funcom, out fossil hunting. Based on the memory of a hand drawn map that he saw on a WEBSITE, we took a train and hour+ out of the city, then walked for about four miles, looking for some rocks that didn’t look much different than the surrounding miles of rocks, but contained fossils. My hopes weren’t too high, but it was nice scenery. And yet…WE FOUND ‘EM!

We didn’t just find a fossil, but lots and lots of fossils, mostly trilobites (which are arthropods, not a rejected Clive Barker movie monster). One of the fossils now sits on my desk.

Also, a raven (not a city crow…but a real raven) circled above us and croaked a few times.

It’s All About Getting the ExP
Do you think anyone will notice that, on my LinkedIn resume, I list one of my past jobs as Infamous International Jewel Thief?
Age of Conan: Rise of the GodslayerThe MMO computer game expansion I’ve been writing on for the last 10 months came out about two weeks ago.

There was a party–my first game launch party. There was much libation. I ended up at various places, and then a long walk home in the early AM (with detailed instructions on where not to walk).

Oslo, May 17thMay 17th is the big national holiday here in Oslo, and I went out and experienced just how many people can fill these city streets. Yikes. Many people were in traditional garb and it was rather interesting. I would have preferred viking helmets and mead-filled skulls, but then, who wouldn’t?

The Pentagon
Saturday I tried to make a trip out to the Comic Book Library here in Oslo…but it was closed for the holiday weekend. Looking about and finding myself in a foreign city (this happens every few hours, think Momento, only I don’t have any nifty tattoos for help) I decided to explore. I eventually stepped into a shop with army surplus, roman helms, tommy gun air rifles, a rubber alien set up in an alien autopsy scene, swords n’ knives, and yes, a live tarantula.

This was convenient as it was exactly the store I was looking for.

Some Tweeted Thoughts and Meditations Over the Last Few Weeks
*No, that is not a tear in my wrinkled shirt; it’s my ragged scarecrow chic.

*When life hands me lemons, I make poorly executed metaphors.

*Hate ironing. If you don’t have any wrinkles, rumples, or patches, how do you even know you’ve lived?

*Found out I’ll be a bridesmaid. Strange days. Never know what I’ll be doing or on what continent anymore. Does this make me a bridesman?

And polygamy. But those charges were dropped as authorities discovered that my wives were all well over the legal age, and all in my head. Too soon?

I agreed to a plea bargain. This includes regular use of this blog as well as other stipulations, like riding a bike from Chicago to New York next September (more on that in a future post).

In the time between posts, we’ve gone all the way from pumpkin patch season to It’s-colder-than-a-witch’s-mamary-gland season.

Some highlights:

A Parrot-Head Looks at FiftyMy Dad had his 50th birthday bash in October. It was quite the revel. Drinks and family and friends and a live band, and various forms of tropical dress. You could read the happy and the celebration written on his face (he deserves more good-spiritted debauchery more often). I got to wear my pirate hat which makes me happy (this sentence might imply that I get to wear it rarely…but that’s not true…I’m wearing it right now…ask me what else I’m wearing…).

By the bye, if you happen to be reading this and you have pictures of that night, and you emailed them to me, then I would be in your debt. If you’re reading this and you do not have those photos, then no worries. If you have the photos but are not reading this, then I guess you won’t get the message. If you are reading this and you have the photos, but suddenly stopped reading, then

Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book, and Ghost Stories by Fire LightOn October 2nd, I was able to go see Neil Gaiman do a reading from a chapter of his latest book, The Graveyard Book. T’was a good reading. T’was a good book (sweet and macabre…like me). And t’was just the right time of year.

Hungry for more, my brother (Nick) and I began holding audio fiction sessions in the backyard, on the deck, by the woods. We’d ignite the fire pit, drink Dunk n’ Donuts coffee and/or hot cider laced with rum, puff a cigarillo or two, and listen October themed fiction and audio performances from my iPod’s growing library (it’s a hungry little bugger).

Our friend, Dori, joined us one night and, to our surprise, really liked it. He had never listened to a single, solitary bit of audio fiction…and he was hooked after one session, practically begging us to continue after we were ready to quit. I mean he’s really Jonesing for this sh!%. It’s refreshing, actually, in this age of multi-multi-multi-mind numbing media—crack for the ears, heroin for the eyes—how excited he was to discover this new form of entertainment, noting how vivid the visuals came to his mind while he stared at the fire, how rejuvenated he felt after listening to a story, how meditative the experience was.

So he made it a pretty regular habit—stories by the fire—occasionally pausing the pod to hear the coyotes going nuts, likely over some kill, in the not too distant distance.

Score one for literacy.

Being read to is a very special ritual. Too many give it up after childhood.Got Spandex?For Halloween, a dozen friends and I hit the bars dressed as the heroes in the Justice League of America. As luck would have it, the first bar had Batman’s entire rogues gallery of villains. We got to threaten and shit-talk each other for hours. Awesome.

More photos to come, but here’s a peek:

Pre-Nativity Night TerrorsMy article about The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D found a home over at Killer-Works. It’s a great site and email newsletter on all things frightening and strange. Go check it out.Trading My Pirate Hat For a Viking Helmet?I’m applying like crazy for writing jobs. If my debt is the Nothing—then I am Atreyu, holding on to a tree, feet off the ground, trying not to get sucked in. Still, I’m holding out on hope for a job that actually interests me and uses some of the skills I spent all that money to get he documentation that says I have them. The latest job submission was to a video game company in Norway. They liked my resume and writing samples enough to send me a little writing test. I sent that off to them on Friday. We’ll see what happens.Bookmarks, bookmarks, bookmarksSome internet bookmarks of interest: